Alabama · NERIS

NERIS reporting in Alabama

Alabama's fire service splits three ways (volunteer, combination, and career) without leaning as hard into any single type as some other states do. NERIS asks the same questions of all three kinds of department.

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Fire departments in Alabama

Departments in the directory: 1,123
Volunteer departments: 80%
Volunteer or combination: 91%
Stations: 1,711

Across the 905 Alabama departments that report staffing, the directory holds 14,936 volunteer firefighters and 8,073 career firefighters; 65% of those counted are volunteers.

Source: the NERIS public department directory, as mirrored in our departments table on July 28, 2026. Percentages are stated against the number of departments that actually reported the field, which is always shown next to them. Departments that reported nothing are not counted as zero and no figure here is estimated.

A department type split that isn’t extreme in either direction

Some states in this directory run almost entirely volunteer; others lean career. Alabama sits between those extremes. Of the 855 departments that report a type, 685 are volunteer, 94 are combination, and 76 are career. Volunteer and combination together account for 91% of the departments that answered. But only 80% are classified purely volunteer, a smaller share than in states where career departments are close to nonexistent. That gap matters for who ends up owning the NERIS report: a combination department usually has at least one paid officer to hand it to; a department typed purely volunteer usually does not.

About a quarter of the state’s departments haven’t answered the type question

268 of Alabama’s 1,123 departments haven’t reported a department type at all. That’s not a rounding error. It means any statement about how the state’s fire service breaks down is really a statement about the departments willing to fill in that field, not the full roster. The departments missing from that count are often the smallest ones, with the fewest people to spare for a directory listing, let alone for keeping a NERIS incident report current.

Two stations, and a staff that leans volunteer without being lopsided

The 870 Alabama departments that report a station count list 1,711 stations between them: just under two houses per department, not one apiece and not the four or five some larger states run. Staffing tells a similar story: across the 905 departments that report it, volunteer firefighters (14,936) outnumber career firefighters (8,073), with volunteers making up 65% of everyone counted. Two stations and a staff that’s roughly two-thirds volunteer is a specific shape of problem — often just one or two people per house, handling both the run and whatever gets written about it afterward.

Trying it doesn’t require any of the above to be solved first

Talk through one incident the way you’d tell it to whoever’s riding next to you, look at the structured report that comes back, and judge for yourself whether it’s faster than typing into the module list NERIS replaced the old form with. Trying it doesn’t need a NERIS login, a roster import, or anything pulled from your department’s own files. Just one call, narrated out loud.

Worth knowing about Alabama

Alabama's directory lists 1,123 fire departments, and 855 of them report a department type — VOLUNTEER, COMBINATION, or CAREER.
Source: snapshot: AL.department_count, AL.departments_with_type_data
Of the 855 Alabama departments with a reported type, 685 are volunteer, 94 are combination, and 76 are career — 91% run on volunteers in some form, but only 80% are classified purely volunteer.
Source: snapshot: AL.by_department_type, AL.departments_with_type_data
870 Alabama departments report a station count, totaling 1,711 stations between them — just under two stations for every department that answered.
Source: snapshot: AL.station_count_sum, AL.departments_with_station_data
Across the 905 Alabama departments that report staffing, the directory counts 14,936 volunteer firefighters against 8,073 career — volunteers make up 65% of everyone counted.
Source: snapshot: AL.firefighters_volunteer_sum, AL.firefighters_career_sum, AL.departments_with_staffing_data

What changed

NERIS replaced NFIRS as the federal fire incident reporting standard onFebruary 1, 2026. It is a different shape of report, not a renamed one: modules instead of flat forms, a three-level text hierarchy instead of numeric incident codes, and an API instead of a file you upload.

What actually changed, in detail · NERIS onboarding (FSRI) · Department sign-up

About grant applications

Departments in Alabama that pursue Assistance to Firefighters Grant funding fill out an application covering how many calls they ran, who staffed them, and how the department operates. Nothing we have reviewed ties NERIS reporting to AFG eligibility or scoring, and a vendor's page is the wrong place to settle that question — the grant program's own published guidance is. What we can say honestly, and it isn't much: pulling those application numbers from reports already on file takes less work than rebuilding a year of calls from a logbook or memory.

We are a vendor, not a grant advisor. Do not take our word for what any grant program requires. Read the current notice of funding opportunity or ask your state's grant coordinator.

Try it on a real Alabama call

Record one incident, read the report it produces, and decide from there. No account, no card, no call with anyone.

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FireMic is a private company. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or recommended by any Alabama state agency, USFA, FSRI, or FEMA. State fire officials do not endorse vendors, and nothing on this page should be read as suggesting otherwise.

Department figures: FireMic Supabase departments table (mirror of the NERIS public department directory, ArcGIS layer 0). Snapshot taken July 28, 2026.